Viridian Echoes
by SwiftintheSky
Summary: ch12 - it's so much easier / to walk in the darkness. (a collection of short pieces through Loki's eyes [poetry, drabbles, etc.] written purely on power of feels and largely unedited.)
1. losing traction losing trust

**A/N: So! I have decided to take a page out of I'vebeenLOKI'Dyetagain's book. She writes a brilliant collection of Loki pieces over in the Thor section of FFN, and I apologize to her if this seems like plagiarism. I have largely the same problem she does, however, namely Loki has invaded my life and I find myself writing random snippets and poetry and stuff about him way too often. And this is a really great way to be able to publish that stuff!**

**Anyway. This particular piece is based off of the Thor 2 prelude comic, over which I am sure all Loki fans have individually read and raged. I haven't actually read the comic myself, so please forgive any inconsistencies with what is actually in the comic.**

* * *

Loki is standing before the Allfather.

He still seethes behind the glinting metal, wounded pride and so much else bristling beneath his skin like broken glass. In some deep, dark way Loki will never acknowledge, his conquest of Midgard was still a conquest to be accepted. If he could not be loved by his so-called father, at least he could be respected by him. But that has failed like everything else, and he is being dragged back to Asgard like a disobedient child, and all he can do now is stand here in front of this man he once called father, anger and denial and stubbornness and hurt coiling and twisting and tearing within him, trying to look poisonous and removed from all around him behind that cold metal muzzle.

And as Odin disowns him, all he can do is ignore the hurt like a spear through his chest, burying it deep beneath his hatred and wrath. He's not Odin's son, he never was, he doesn't want to be the son of this foolish, selfish old bastard, to whom he is nothing more than a pawn. He's betrayed Odin again and again, he's proven his loathing, there's no reason for Loki to feel hurt, none at all.

And as Odin states bluntly that Frigga is the only reason he is still alive, that, indeed, he will spend the rest of his days in a cell, all Loki can do is blot out every memory of his youth into a dull golden haze, and crush the faint leaping of his heart at the mention of Frigga's intervening on his behalf, and twist this new knifeblade between his ribs into a red-hot weapon to clench in his grip. The cell is nothing to worry about, anyway, not when he is Loki. He will find a way, he always does, and everything else he is thinking is concentrated into his burning green eyes, enough to cause Thor's face to crumple if it were Thor, maybe enough to poison even the Allfather himself.

And as Odin calls him Loki _Laufeyson_, all he can do is stiffen silently, shock running through every vein like ice, cursed ice, followed by the deep blaze of - of everything, he is burning, burning, burning. How dare this man remind him of the lie that is his life, how dare this man use it against him, use it to hurt him - all over again he can see them beneath Asgard, the Casket thrumming malevolently behind them, the blue fading from his shaking hands that he is trying so hard to keep still, a lifetime of being made to feel less rising like bile in his throat - but that was so long ago, when he was someone else, someone else entirely, someone who loved the weak sick pathetic fool before him and believed it was possible for him to love him back.

All he can do is bite back the bitter screams of fury that rage in his mind, a hurricane of them, he can't pick them apart, all he can do is be led away with rough hands shoving him down the halls to his cell with his eyes of smoldering, swirling acid burning into Odin's and daring the old man to regret.

He sees none, and all he can do is continue to walk as his mind splinters in on itself, unable any longer to lie its way out of the pain of his father's final betrayal.


	2. cosmic shift

**A/N: This is a poem I've been fiddling with for quite some time, and finally decided it was more or less complete. (The extra periods are just meant as placeholders so that the stanzas won't be squashed together.)**

* * *

blood on my hands

blood on my heart

can't see a way out

i can't even start

.

look at me

what i have become

sky going dark

soul going numb

.

falling and falling

in darkness and cold

shattering cracking

and fading from gold

.

drowning in red

and drowning in blue

drowning in darkness

and drowning in truth

.

cold and colder

and yet colder still

blank and yet blanker

blaze hot for the kill

.

i cannot remember

my hatred runs deep

i will not remember,

my secrets i'll keep.

.

stab and betray

twirl and spin,

you cannot escape

i'm fighting to win.


	3. too little too late

**A/N: I wrote this a while ago but I didn't want to publish it because it's short and AU and depressing as hell. It was in response to a prompt on norsekink . livejournal . com, based off the comics: Loki had been impersonating Scarlet Witch, and was captured by her brother, who basically started torturing him for information on her location, which he didn't even know. So he calls to Thor for help, and Thor smashes stuff up and saves him. The prompt is: what if Thor just assumes it's another of his brother's tricks?**

**So I held back on it but now I have a chance to publish it and give you emotional trauma ;D**

* * *

"You came," Loki rasps. His eyes are hazy and unfocused as they latch onto Thor's, his entire body limp as a ragdoll's. His lips twist up, a little, an almost-smile, colored by pain. "I knew you would."

And Thor wants to cry because he _hadn't_. He is a worthless, horrible brother, he left Loki here to scream and scream and cry for help alone, and he doesn't _deserve_ the affection in those green green eyes.

"Loki, I - " he starts and then he breaks off, because the words are like broken glass in his throat. He stares at his brother helplessly, his fragile frame, the dried blood across his face, his shaking hands. He's barely there. And Thor knows with a trembling certainty that he is too late, far far too late. He's no healer, no brilliant magic-user like Loki, and they're far away from help and all he can do now is hold his brother and _hope_ and brush a lock of hair from his brow and try not to feel like everything in him is quaking, bending, threatening to shatter.

"You always do," he mumbles, fingers clutching at the fabric of Thor's shirt. His eyes are half-closed and he is so _delicate_ in Thor's grasp. "You... you must have been busy but... you're here an - "

"Loki I'm sorry," Thor blurts. His hands are shaking now, they are and they _can't_, they aren't supposed to and he is Thor, mighty Thor, indomitable and invincible and he's not, he's not supposed to shake like a frightened child but that's what he _is_. "So, so sorry. I am sorry brother. I am sorry..."

Loki manages to frown. "I am... Thor, you are..." He reaches a trembling hand to his golden brother's face, and it lingers uncertainly by those larkspur eyes, the tears trying not to fall.

"Am I going to die?" he asks, and there's no fear in his voice, there's no accusation, no raw betrayal or leaping desperation. And that somehow makes it _worse_. It is a simple question, asked almost idly, but then he has spent the past weeks _here_, being hurt and hurt until he was half out of his mind, and he was calling for Thor and Thor -

- how could he have known, when in the last years all Loki had done was stab him in the back and betray him and hurt him, when all he spoke to Thor were lies, how could he have known that this wasn't just another trick but he _should have_, he should have and now Loki is lying here in his arms and he's not scared, he's not angry he is lying here and asking if he is going to die.

A ragged sob escapes Thor's chest.

Loki's arm drops, as if it hasn't the strength to stay up longer anyhow.

"If there is anyone who should be sorry, it is me," the trickster says, the words coming out in a low wheeze. His eyebrows are knitting together, jade eyes glittering with emotion, regret.

"No," Thor chokes out but Loki ignores him.

"I have... in the last years... I am sorry, brother."

Thor manages to be startled through his tears, stiffening in surprise.

_brother_

_brother brother brother he called me brother_

and Loki is still speaking, in a broken almost-whisper.

"I was just - I was so _angry_..." He trails off and starts again. "And I was, I _am_ a selfish fool... can't make it up to you now," and something like a laugh escapes his lips. "I... I do not deserve you."

"Don't say that," Thor sobs, remembering golden apples and stories shared, giggling under the covers in the dark, adventures through fire and through ice, the recent years melting away as if they are nothing. They _are_ nothing, after centuries and centuries of love, of companionship - "Don't say that, Loki. It is I who does not deserve you. I heard you and heard you and I _didn't come_ - " His grip on Loki tightens.

"You did," Loki assures him, nearly inaudible. "You always do."

And then, a few moments later: "Brother, I need you to know that I... even after... I s-still... l-love you." The last words are barely a ghost of a breath, and Loki's fingers are loosening on Thor's arm.

"I love you too." Thor forces the ragged words up his throat, and his brother's face is blurring and then Loki goes still and the trickster's breath catches in his throat and his eyes fade to blank.

And Thor lets himself break, then, break and shatter and shake, sobbing over his brother's body, a brother quick with wit and with magic, a brother who only for a while lost his way, a brother who will never, ever return.

* * *

**A/N: HAHAHAHHAHAH SCREW YOU**


	4. lifeline

**A/N: This was originally going to be part of "cosmic shift", but it didn't really fit in and thus became its own poem. Poison in the Well presents: "lifeline".**

* * *

only the blue

keeps me alive

i must survive,

i must survive

.

i'm dead, i'm dead

i've already died inside

still the blue

keeps me alive

.

a thousand deaths

a thousand fates i've tried

and still the blue

half-alive, half-alive.


	5. in that moment

**A/N: Consider this a drabble I guess... this is a very very short ficlet I wrote after I was overwhelmed with feels by a picture on deviantart xD**

**It's not very clear and it probably won't make much sense unless you see the picture... which is here (remove the spaces): florbe . deviantart art/Back-to-Asgard-338031250**

* * *

****And he doesn't even know how - he can't he can't he _can't_ - but Thor is here, Thor is here wrapping his arms around him and he still loves him, he still believes in him after _everything_ - and it's too _much_. He wants to fall into Thor's arms and never leave but he doesn't, he wants to shove him off and run away before he crumbles back into the past, the impossible past. And he can feel the warmth and light and he is made of shadow and darkness, he doesn't _need Thor he doesn't need him_ - he can stand on his own tall and proud and dark but no, no he can't. And then everything shuts down, he can't think anymore, he won't, because this is enough, this moment, Thor holding him tightly and saying he will never let him go again. This is enough. And at least for now, at least for this moment, he lets his guard fall, he lets them become brothers.

* * *

**Something happy for once... or at least as happy as Loki fic gets. It's pretty confusing, but then I was trying to capture Loki's massive amounts of denial, so.**

**Enjoy, I guess.**


	6. heartbeat

Your heartbeat is not, he decides, what determines whether or not you are alive.

The pain is still holding him fast, pinning him, catching him in barbed wire, impaling him on shards of his soul, burning him in frost and fire and everything in between. He is sure that, at this point, he should be unconscious.

Then again, at this point, he should be dead.

But it seems death does not favor him. He has given her so many opportunities to find him and drag him, blissfully, from his nightmarish reality, but she has taken none of them.

His limbs refuse to move. His mind swirls, dances, tips and loops like a drunkard, the light pounding against his skull and exploding and echoing and re-echoing, a supernova played backwards and forwards in slow motion and in dizzying speed, all at once.

Perhaps he has wandered so far and so frequently, slipping from realm to realm, that death does not know to which afterlife he belongs, and so rejects him again and again, damning him to life as a lost soul. Perhaps he died long ago, on the Bifrost, perchance, and this is purgatory, punishment, endless, merciless. Perhaps he has been dead even longer than that. Perhaps he died in Jotunheim, with the rush of cold blue through his skin where should be screeching flame-frost pain.

Sounds twirl in his ears and the world smears like oil paint. Nausea rolls across his stomach, he can't tell which way is down or up, whether he is stationary or falling, whether he is awake or asleep. He can't feel anything, nothing at all, nothing but the agony white as sun black as the dark side of the moon.

His own name no longer rings true to his ears. It's a stranger's name, it belongs to someone from long long ago. His soul has shattered and reformed so many times that he can't tell which fragments were always his and which he scraped up along the way. His world fractured, flipped, fell away that day in Jotunheim and he's been falling ever since, so sure that every impact with the ground will be the last, wrong every step of the way, peeling away and lurching down, down, down until he can't remember ever having stood on his own two feet.

Someone has split his skull open and poured liquid steel in the cracks. The pain ebbs and throbs. He doesn't know how long he's been lying here, how long it's been, but he knows it's been eternities, long enough to grow old and young again, and finally, finally it is fading enough for darkness to crowd around him and melt the world into a shadowy haze. Unconsciousness swims up to him and he sinks into it, gratefully, his thoughts leaning into one another and inverting, jumbling into an indistinguishable grey tangle.

But Loki is sure of one thing as he slips into the deep; your heartbeat does not determine whether you are alive, for he died long, long ago.

And since that day, swept up in ice and swirling snow, he has never been truly reborn.


	7. late nights

**Did I just write... FLUFF?!**

**...the answer is yes. Have a paragraph of tasertricks headcanons 3**

* * *

Darcy has always been an insomniac and Loki sleeps a lot less than he used to, and they were both used to whiling away the hours alone in the dark, but after a few nights of listening to each other breathe they stopped trying to fall asleep at a normal time. Their lights are on long after anyone else's except when they turn them off because the shadows feel safe, snuggled on the couch while Darcy introduces Loki to every corner of pop culture, working their way up from Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, playing Super Smash Bros and Mario Kart, Darcy howling with laughter when Loki turns out to be a sore loser. Sometimes the nights drag really late and Darcy starts hacking people for fun while he demands how she's doing it, and once she almost convinces him it's magic, and after that, well, she has no choice but to teach him everything she knows - and before long they start leaving little tricks and pranks behind wherever they break in. Sometimes Darcy falls asleep slumped against him, the movie still droning softly in the background, the blue light flickering gently across her face; Loki tucks her in carefully and turns off the TV and just watches her until he realizes she's smiling, and they wake up curled into one another, like cats.

It's not long until they both start sleeping better than they ever have.


	8. contrariety

**Today's drabble brought to you by feels induced by the lovely Loki - Seven Devils video on YouTube. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend watching it. Right now. Link below.**

**/watch?v=lrvGbRpvTQY (add youtube. com)**

* * *

Can you see him? Can you see the beautiful tragedy of conflict and contrast that he is? How shattered, and yet how strong; how passionate, and yet how cold; how dark, and yet how bright. He is the focal point, he is power, he is poison and lies, frost and fire and cold smiles and a knifeblade in your ribs. Yet he is also denial and broken glass, a lost soul, a ghost, a wraith from a world that has expelled him from it and moved on, he is a life of loneliness unfurled like a roadmap, love and jealousy and loss festered and soured into something with teeth and fangs, he is someone with absolutely nobody and nothing, a past locked away as far as he can push it. He is self-deprecating smiles and hate pointed inwards, he thinks himself weak but he is so, so strong because after all that has happened he can still get up and push forward and face each day. He is cut loose from past and present and future. He is the sum of his experiences, he is a mind tortured and locked in lies, lies he planted there himself, he is darkness and shadow and malevolence and yet deep inside under lock and key he is a child who wants to come home, wants there to be a home to go home to, there is something deep, deep down that puts tears in the corners of his eyes and longs for the bright spark of redemption. He dominates the room, he strikes fear into every heart, he stands tall and proud and taunting. He is strength and weakness, love and hate, fire and ice. He is so very strong, and so very broken, and so very beautiful.


	9. ch9

**I wrote another thing. Inspired by what I know about Thor 2. (Mind you, I haven't seen the movie... and it's killing me... sigh.) I was sort of playing with rhythm, in this piece.**

* * *

give him a knife

he'll tear hell asunder

give him an ocean

and he'll go under

give him a lullaby

but he'll never fall asleep

give him a catalyst

he'll fall into the deep

give him your love

he'll rip it limb from limb

give him the freedom

he never had to begin

give him a roadmap

and he's forgotten how to read

give him a blade tonight

he remembers how to bleed

give him the truth

a truth he won't believe

give him a reason

a reason to breathe

give him the reason  
he desperately needs.


	10. i used to know

**...I don't even know where this came from. Wrote it in like 5 minutes.**

* * *

round and round and round we go

through the frost and through the snow

what can we do i do not know

what can we do i used to know

falling, fighting, break apart

lying, screaming, deadly art

i used to hear i used to know

what can we do i do not know

it's such a deadly, deadly game

my heart bleeding yours the same

i'll shatter the glass, cannot be tamed

malice cold, rise up from shame

throw the knife and twist the blade

lonely spectre, distant shade

all that's left to bind us here

died long ago, i'm nowhere near

compassion sealed far below

desperate now it's all for show

i love you still or didn't you know

i'll kill myself before you know

maybe now i've gone too far

lied to myself i tipped too far

no longer whole don't you see the scars

i tipped you over i went too far

round and round and round we go

through the frost and through the snow

i want to leave or didn't you know

where did this start i used to know

everything i used to know

could fill a book i'd never show

impale my heart and let me go

i'll fall, i'll fall, far far below.

impale my heart and let me go

let me fall, far below.


	11. constant

**A/N: I wrote this a while ago, and I kept meaning to revise it, but it finally became apparent that that was never going to happen. So hear you have it, a little piece imbued with TDW-trailer-caused brotherly feels.**

* * *

Thor is constant.

Unmovable.

No matter what happens, he never changes, not really. He is sure and steady as the rising sun, arrogant and impulsive, strong and powerful, charismatic and authoritative, kind and loyal, deeply loyal.

Not even Loki could change him and once upon a time he played silver shadow to the golden prince and loved him, took comfort in the fact. No matter what outside forces fluctuated and shifted around them Thor would always be there, to pick him up, to become entangled in harebrained schemes, to rescue and be rescued.

Thor was his rock.

But the days grew long and bitter and Loki didn't want to be a shadow anymore, only the light was dazzling and warm, everything he was not, it burned him when he tried to touch it, and Asgard too would go down in flames if he did not keep Thor off the throne, but he had not planned for this, for his brother to wage a personal war but he should have -

- and then the ice and the cold and the howling wind stole his soul.

He was mercury, quicksilver, the rising tide, cloud tumbling over a barren moon, and Thor paced on Midgard as constant as ever but he didn't _deserve_ it, Thor had caused this, it was his fault everything was his fault and how was he so damn invincible and so damn lucky, everything was handed to him he had it _easy_ and he never saw and never heard and how was it he was so much better, so much stronger kinder warmer _better_ and he didn't even have to try (of course, of course, Loki knows now) and _I'm not your brother I never was_.

Loki fell into the abyss past endless chasms and burning velvet, fell and fell and _changed_.

Thor did not.

Thor reached out to him, gave him a chance, begged him to turn back. He was the only one. Everyone else was perfectly willing to believe that the old Loki was dead, gone, or maybe the old Loki never was and this twisted creature had lived there all along. And what Thor promised, it was bright and beautiful and so, so out of reach. His brother was a fool, a pathetic fool, and his promises and light and love were nothing Loki wanted, and Thor needed to get outoutoutgetaway or maybe Loki would remember, maybe he would be forced to see, come face to face with everything with frosttrustlieslovestarsandburningdarkandevilthings -

- and a knife between the ribs, the push of a button and the drop into wind, these were so much easier, so much easier, so much _better_ never to see his face again.

But Loki failed.

The glass prison shot up and kept him.

Thor didn't come, and didn't come, and didn't come.

Now they are face to face.

Now, if any, is the time for truth, but Loki isn't telling.

(how can he, when his own mind is a tangled mess, a maze, a ball of thread with nothing on either end)

And Thor has changed. His face is like stone, voice a scalpel. He has lost all hope, all faith, all love. _ If you betray me I will kill you._

And for just a moment Loki can't do it. Any of it. Not anymore. For just a moment his world bends and curves alarmingly around him, he's done it, he's broken his brother but there's no happiness in it now and did he ever expect there to be and why did he, why didn't he, he had so many chances and if not even Thor can believe _what hope is there for him_ -

And then he shuts down everything, again, before the thoughts can overrun him and spill out of him, tear into the outside world for all to see, internal organs on display.

Well, he thinks, you've done it. You've convinced him of the truth, that Loki Odinson is dead and gone.

He offers what passes as a smile, leans forward, cants his head.

"Mmm. When do we start?"


	12. walking in darkness

**A/N: Just a little something I wrote. Waiting to see Thor 2 is killing me.**

* * *

walking in darkness

is easy

it cloaks him in shadow

safe away from prying eyes

when he stays there

he is the one who watches

and stalks and tears apart

and it's so much easier

to be the monster

cold and menacing, feared

path lit only by

a faint blue glow

it's so much easier

to walk in the darkness

but then

he never did know how

to walk in the light


End file.
